OUR VIEW: NASA gets needed boost with successful Mars landing

7:53 PM,
Aug. 7, 2012

This image taken by NASA's Curiosity shows what lies ahead for the rover -- its main science target, informally called Mount Sharp. The rover's shadow can be seen in the foreground, and the dark bands beyond are dunes. Rising up in the distance is the highest peak of Mount Sharp at a height of about 3.4 miles, taller than Mount Whitney in California. The Curiosity team hopes to drive the rover to the mountain to investigate its lower layers, which scientists think hold clues to past environmental change.

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The Star Press

To use an Olympics' analogy, NASA set a new record in the long jump, depositing the rover Curiosity inside a crater with pinpoint precision after a 352 million-mile journey that began Nov. 26.

The final "seven minutes of terror" involved a tricky choreography of a giant parachute, 79 separate detonations to jettison ballast, protective shields and the parachute itself. A "sky crane" with retro rockets then lowered Curiosity to the Martian surface, cut its tethers and crashed out of harm's way. ...